The Problems of Psychical Research, Hereward Carrington [book club suggestions txt] 📗

"With regard to the eagle, it was produced in this way: Mme. Darget was in my office, lying on my sofa, about ten o'clock in the evening. I said to her: 'I am about to put out the lamp and to try (as I have already done sometimes) to take a fluidic print over my forehead. I will hand you a plate for you to do it as well.'

"I therefore handed her a plate, which she held with both her hands about an inch in front of her forehead. A short time afterwards—it might be about ten minutes—she said to me: 'I think I am going asleep; I am very tired: I am going to lie down.' And feeling her way in the darkness, she handed me the plate.

"I then went to develop it, and was surprised to see this astonishing figure of an eagle. I have called it a 'dream-photograph,' although my wife does not remember having dreamed of a bird or anything else while she held the plate."

Dr. Baraduc, of Paris, likewise asserted that he had obtained psychic photographs of human radiations and of human thought. For instance, calm, peaceful emotions are said to produce pictures of softly homogeneous light, or the appearance of a gentle shower of snowflakes against a black background; whereas sad or violent passions suggest, in the arrangement of the light and shadows, the idea of a whirlpool or revolving storm, somewhat like a meteorological diagram representing a cyclone. If these photographs are really what they are believed to be, they would seem to indicate that, in our ordinary normal condition, we emit radiations which are regulated and flow forth in smooth, even succession; but when violent emotions, such as anger or fear, break through the control of the will and take possession of us, they produce a violent and confused emission.

There is no reason, a priori, why the soul should not be a space-occupying body, save for the tradition of theology. For all that we know, the soul might be a point of force, existing within and animating some sort of ethereal body, which corresponds, in size and shape, to our material body. But at all events, there is an abundance of very good testimony to the effect that the shape of the spiritual body corresponds to that of the material body; and, as such, it certainly occupies space, and possibly has weight also. It might and it might not; it is a question of evidence. It will have to be settled, if at all, not by speculations, but by facts. Are there any facts, then, that would seem to indicate that the soul might be photographed? Have we any evidence that the soul may be photographed—say, at the moment of death? If so, we should have advanced a great step in our knowledge of this subject.

Before I adduce the evidence on this point, however, it may be well to illustrate the fact that there is no inherent absurdity in the idea, as many might suppose. Of course the spiritual body would have to be material enough to reflect light waves, but where is the evidence that it is not? There seems to be much evidence, on the contrary, that it is. It must be remembered that the camera will disclose innumerable things quite invisible to the naked eye, or even to the eye aided by the strongest glasses or telescopes. Normally, we can see but a few hundred stars in the sky; with the aid of telescopes, we can see many thousand; but the photographic camera discloses more than twenty million! Here, then, is direct evidence that the camera can observe things which we cannot see; and, indeed, this whole process of sight or "seeing" is a far more complicated one than most persons imagine. As Sir Oliver Lodge has pointed out, there is no reason why we should not be enabled to photograph a spirit, when we can photograph an image in a mirror—which is composed simply of vibrations, and reflected vibrations at that! We are a long way from the tangible thing, in such a case; and yet we are enabled to photograph it with an ordinary camera. Any disturbance in the ether we should be enabled to photograph likewise—if only we had delicate enough instruments, and if the "conditions" for the experiment were favourable. The phenomena of spirit-photography, and especially the experiments of Dr. Baraduc, to which I shall presently refer, would seem to indicate this.

These experiments, as well as those that are about to follow, gain greater credibility when considered in the light of the newer experimental researches in physics, which demonstrate, apparently, that matter can be made to disintegrate and disappear, and can be again reformed from invisible vortices in the ether into sufficiently solid bodies to be photographed by the sensitive plate. In his remarkable work, The Evolution of Matter, Dr. Gustave Le Bon has devoted a whole section of his argument to what he has denominated "the dematerialization of matter." He proves by experiments in the physical laboratory that matter can dissociate, and vanish into apparent nothingness. What really takes place, however, is that the solid matter, as we have been accustomed to conceive it, is resolved into its finer constituent parts—not only into the material atoms of which it is composed, but these atoms are in turn dissociated and resolved into a series of etheric vortices, invisible to normal sense perception. Apparently, therefore, matter has ceased to be, as such; and, in fact, it has been resolved into energy! Conversely, Dr. Le Bon proved that, by producing artificial equilibria of the elements arising from the dissociation of matter, he could succeed in creating, with immaterial particles, "something singularly resembling matter." These equilibria were maintained a sufficient length of time to enable them to be photographed.

On p. 164 of Dr. Le Bon's Evolution of Matter, are to be found photographs of what is practically materialized matter. This author says, in part:—